10 Wrestlers Who Innovated New Stipulation Matches
Money in the bank.
The origins of certain stipulation matches are untraceable.
The outlaw days of professional wrestling were swarmed by self-serving egotists in a super secretive, close-knit industry that protected itself. A comprehensive oral history of it naturally does not exist, and if it did, one could dispute virtually every account. Wrestling is a con curated by conmen. It's part of the fascination, or at least it was, until provable, excruciating lies were spouted endlessly by Conrad Thompson's carny podcast co-host network.
The first recorded Steel Cage match was purported to have taken place - so fittingly, given the city's mythical history with the stip - in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1937. It's a romantic way of looking at it, but it's not definitive; accounts of earlier iterations can be traced back to earlier that decade.
The 'Hardcore' match and its derivations also share a shadowy, imprecise history, the patent claims of which span Memphis, Puerto Rico, Detroit. The Battle Royale, the most quintessential wrestling gimmick match there is, predates wrestling itself. There was no creator; only an enterprising plagiarist with an idea very likely shared by somebody else across the country.
But, in a year that has enforced the full dawn of a new attraction, credit can be apportioned for the more modern ones...
10. Dusty Rhodes - WarGames
The first WarGames matches were incredible spectacles that hold up to 2020 scrutiny because f*ck improved athletic standards: they were fights so brutal steel had to contain them.
The presentation of the match was a perfect hybrid of outrageous theatre and gritty realism. If it looked overblown, in an awesome sort of way - two rings! Two cages! - it felt ultra-violent, with all that disgusting plasma appearing to ooze from the magazine pages that captured its jaw-dropping allure.
The structural formula Dusty Rhodes devised was another perfect fusion: of anticipation and brutality.
One feeling informed and intensified the other. As the heels outnumbered the babyfaces, a sense of wrongness drove bloodthirsty vengeance; the red claret cascading from the heads of the battered heroes was reflected in the red mist of the tormented fans, who punched the air when the parity was restored. The build and release cycle began anew, as the drama graduated to a brutal blur of a crescendo, culminating in the Match Beyond - a phase so punishing, a combatant had to yield to it for mercy.
Rhodes created the match having drawn inspiration from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and was very keen to credit Klondike Bill for facilitating his vision "like a mad scientist".